Methane Geyser: Shell Fracking Operation Suspected

EcoWatch reports that the Pennsylvania DEP is investigating a suspected methane migration problem which has caused a methane-driven geyser to erupt from the water well of a hunting cabin in Union Township.

The Suspected source of the methane is a frack site operatoed by Shell on the Guindon farm in Union Township

NPR Reports that Tioga County Emer­gency Ser­vices Coor­di­na­tor Denny Cole­grove suspects that an unmapped, aban­doned gas well more than 70 years old is part of the problem.

The geyser is  now under control, and evacuation is being planned for residents within a 1-mile radius.

If the cause is determined to be a horizontal frack intersecting with an unmapped, improperly abandoned well, then this is great concern for the future of fracking in a state that is littered with thousands of abandoned wells.


[[Location:41.567042,-76.998225]]

Gas Flaring at Scheible Drill Site near Knoxville, PA

During our recent trip to Tioga County, our flight crew spotted a frack site continually flaring off natural gas. The flaring is happening approximately 3 miles south of Knoxville, PA at a drill site on the Scheible farm.

Photo Credit: Bill Howard, The Downstream Project; Aerial support provided by Lighthawk.

Operator: SWEPI LP

Well API: 37-117-21415

Site Name: SCHEIBLE P 898 5H OG WELL

Permit Date: 12/22/2012

Permit Details

Drilling Start Date: 1/9/2012

SPUD Report

Frack Date: 3/20/2012

Frac Focus Report 

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[[Location:41.913758333333, -77.433805555556]]

Methane Leak in Bradford County

The stargazette reported on Monday, May 21st a methane leak  into several private wells in Bradford County, Pennsylvania; the source is being pinpointed as the Chesapeake Energy’s Morse frack pad. Testing is currently being conducted by the company in compliance with well owners, and the company is providing homes with fresh drinking water and filters to continue bathing and washing dishes safely. This event is ironically happening down the road from another Chesapeake well that blew out last year and took several days to clean up.

The wells in that area of Bradford County are MORSE 3H and MORSE 5H, with API numbers 015-20929 and 015-20932 respectively. The permits for both wells were issued on May 26th, 2010. The drilling for 3H began on September 17th, 2010 and for 5H, August 23rd, 2010.

A special thanks goes out to Laurie Barr from Save Our Streams PA for reporting this and sending us the links to information on this incident. All information provided in this blog post was taken from an article on stargazette.com, and was written up by G. Jeffery Aaron.

[[Location: 41.683219, -76.656019]]

Tanker Collides With Drill Rig Off Corpus Christi, Texas

The FR8 Pride, a Panamax tanker that carries petroleum products, lost power this morning and drifted into a mobile offshore drilling unit - a large jackup drill rig called the Rowan EXL I.  The rig was not drilling at the time; it was damaged and has been stabilized.  The tanker sustained flooding in a bow compartment and grounded itself; it is carrying a load of fuel oil.  No oil spill has been reported.  View a video of the collision and aftermath.

[[Location: 27.81753,-96.98905]]

Shell Reports 10-Mile-Long Slick in Deepwater Gulf of Mexico

Yesterday evening Shell reported sighting a 10-mile by 1-mile oil slick between two of their major deepwater oil production platforms, Ursa and Mars.  This is located in the Mississippi Canyon area of the Gulf, 130 miles south of New Orleans and about 60 miles beyond the tip of the Mississippi Delta, in water about 3,200' deep. 
Yesterday's low resolution MODIS/Terra satellite image of the area, shot at 16:50 UTC (10:50 am local time) shows what appears to be a narrow, 17-mile-long slick in the vicinity of the two platforms.  We often see slicks from known natural oil seeps that are about this size; some in the Green Canyon area to the west show up well on this same image.  Low clouds and their shadows are scattered across the lower half of this view:

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[[Location: 28.204381,-89.258767]]

Gas Pipeline Explosion and Fire - Vermilion Parish, Louisiana

SkyTruth Alerts gave us a heads up that there was an explosion and fire around noon yesterday in the marshes of Vermilion Parish, Louisiana.  One caller to the National Response Center noted flames shooting 150' into the air; another caller, perhaps a bit more excited, claimed 800'.  At about the same time, a caller from Texas Gas Transmission Co. detected a huge drop in pressure in one of their gas pipelines, while noting a fireball in the marsh in the vicinity of the pipeline.  The fire was burning so hot that it shows up as a fuzzy red spot in this low-resolution MODIS/Terra band 7-2-1 satellite image, taken yesterday at 1pm local time:

MODIS/Terra 721 satellite image, April 9, 2012 showing fire from inferred gas pipeline rupture in Louisiana. Orange dots are offshore oil and gas platforms in federal waters; orange lines are some of the seafloor oil and gas pipelines.

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[[Location: 29.23301,-91.035783]]

Gas Well Blowout in the North Sea - Small Slick on April 4

The out-of-control well owned by French company Total in the central North Sea's Elgin field is still spewing natural gas into the air. We noted a small slick at this site on a radar satellite image taken March 27.  Another image, taken on April 4, also shows a somewhat smaller slick (see image below).  This is probably caused by natural-gas condensate, a volatile and toxic hydrocarbon liquid that evaporates relatively quickly.  We don't see any reason to expect this incident to morph into a significant oil spill.

Radar satellite image showing small slick at North Sea blowout site, taken on April 4, 2012 at 9:29 pm local time. Envisat ASAR image courtesy European Space Agency.

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[[Location: 57.011667,1.837778]]